MIRAS Virtual Resource Centre

The team has established its first Virtual Resource Centres at Lahore. The target students are schoolchildren in Lahore enrolled in government or private schools where standards of education are generally poor and children deprived of opportunities for cognitive learning and self-development.

Vision

It all started when we watched a series of documentaries that showed the abysmal state of primary education in the country. We decided we ought to do more than just ‘feel sorry’ for a change, and that the concern ought to translate itself into action, even if it is small...

VEFA Pakistan is now holding its reinforcement lessons at the following MIRAS Centres

Mashal School, Chararpind, Lahore

Door Of Awareness Free School, Johar Town, Lahore

Lessons for English as well as Mathematics are held at the schools every weekend, for both boys and girls of the primary classes.
The response from the students is overwhelming. They benefit greatly from the content delivered in an innovative and student-friendly manner. It is truly a very productive and engaging one hour of quality instruction. Its a tremendous success, and a source of great encouragement for the the VEFA Pakistan team.

The Idea

Our pilot project focuses on school education. The nature of assistance provided is of a supplementary and not a parallel or competing nature, that is to reinforce with better conceptual understanding, the syllabi taught in Pakistani schools. The project will have three areas of focus:

Training of teachers and volunteers, enabling them to contribute through the use of educational technology tools and preserving their contribution as an educational resource.

Educational reinforcement for school goers to cover deficiencies in the prevalent system and supplement school education.

Holistic personality development through education. Coaching and mentoring, guidance and support for school children.

Why Virducate

The education sector in Pakistan has generally suffered neglect considering its importance as the very basis of a civilized society. The quality of education in primary schools all over the country is appalling. This is in most cases due to either total absence of teachers, or teachers being incapable of imparting education up to the desired standard.
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However, with the technology boom and it being cheaply and widely available, we believe technology can be used to equip teachers, schools and students with user-friendly educational resources that can impart quality education of an international standard in the local language.
A similar highly successful project is Salman Khan’s Online Academy which has assisted thousands of students globally. We aim to replicate and expand the Khan Academy idea, and specialize it for Pakistani school and college goers.
We believe promoting virtual education for Pakistani schoolchildren is the need of the hour given the non availability of competent and dedicated professionally qualified primary school teachers. Our project aims to reduce reliance on human resource and use technology in order to provide the average school-goer with education of an international standard in the local language. Virtual education will have the added advantage of allowing students to study at their own pace and get free universal round the clock access to educational resources.